Prose is the ordinary medium through which we communicate in conversation
in letters, in journalism. Artistic prose is the prose used in novels, short story (fiction) or even in poetry.
The term “fiction’ is used to refer to the novel (romanzo) andt he short story (racconto, novella).
Structural characteristics of fiction
The first great literary critic was the Greek philosopher Aristotle, he observed that
narration had 4 important structural characteristics : story, character, time and space.
Today we have also other structural characteristics they are:
story and plot, setting, character, narrator and point of view.
Story and plot
A story is the description of a connected series of events.
The way in which the events are organized into a narrative is the plot.
The flashback is an interruption of the story to relate some important event of the past but relevant to understand what is happening.
Setting
The setting of a story is 'the place where the story happens.
A character is a person represented in a story. In a story there are main
characters and secondary characters.
Nowadays we distinguish between round and flat characters. Round characters show psychological development: they are dynamic. Flat characters show little or no psychological development, they are static.
Narrator and point of view
The narrator can be a first-person narrator, he speaks as *I” and may be the main character of the novel, but could also be an external narrator commenting on the story or directly addressing the reader. First-person narration is typically found in letters, autobiographies , diaries and epistolary novels.
The third person narrator introduces the characters, describes what happens, If the third person narrator comments or intervene in the story is called obtrusive; if he never intervenes, is called unobtrusive.
The third-person narrator can be omniscient, a narrator who controls all the characters, decides their words and thoughts. He knows everything. Third-person narrators can also be non-omniscient, only relating the story from the outside without giving us additional information.
The short story
The short story is written in artistic prose and it is short but carefully constructed The short story can include most of the narrative features we find in novels: descriptive passages, dialogue, character’s thoughts, a more or less detailed setting. But with an economy of style and of structure. A consequence of the short story's brevity is that it usually begins in the middle of a situation.
THE NOVEL
A novel is a long work of fiction in prose. A novel is formed by: story and plot; characters, setting, narrator and pointi of view.
Utopian fiction is a genre of fiction that portrays an ideal world to be compared to man’s actual imperfect world.
The science-fiction novel
The science-fiction novel is based on future or recent scientific discoveries and deals with imaginary worlds, space travel, or life on other planets and the effect on man of science and technology.
The historical novel
The historical novel is set in past times set against great historical events, that have a direct relevance to contemporary life.